How Long Cabinet Refacing Lasts in Oakville
The doors are new and the boxes were already decades old and fine. That combination is the whole answer, and the finish on top of it is what decides the rest.
What you are actually asking about
"How long does refacing last" is three questions wearing one coat, and separating them makes the answer much clearer.
- The boxes are the ones you already had. If they were sound when we started — square, dry, firmly fixed — they were already twenty or thirty years old and showing no sign of stopping. Nothing about refacing shortens that.
- The doors and drawer fronts are new, made to your openings. They are as new as anything in a replaced kitchen, because that is exactly what they are.
- The finish is the only genuinely new variable, and it is where the differences between one company and another actually live.
The finish is where jobs diverge
Most cabinet painters use a water-based acrylic. It is cheaper per litre, it is easier to work with, and it is why so many painted kitchens look tired inside five years.
We use 2K polyurethane — a two-component, catalysed, solvent-based system, for both primer and topcoat. Catalysed means it cures by chemical reaction rather than by drying, which cross-links the film into something considerably harder. It is the same class of finish used on high-end furniture and in automotive refinishing.
What that buys, concretely: it resists kitchen cleaners and cooking grease rather than being slowly degraded by them, it takes daily knocks without chipping through to bare substrate, and it does not yellow as it ages the way water-based enamels on white cabinetry famously do.
What actually shortens it
Three things, and only one of them is about the product.
- Preparation. By a distance the biggest factor. A finish is only as durable as its grip on what is underneath, and years of furniture polish and cooking grease will defeat that grip no matter what goes on top. Most painters clean with TSP, which is water-based — it cannot cut wax, and it swells solid timber and raises the grain. Ours is a modified solvent degreaser, which is why prep is where the hours go.
- Water. A slow leak under a sink will destroy a cabinet base whatever is on the front of it. That is a plumbing problem presenting as a cabinet problem.
- Hardware, eventually. Hinges and runners are mechanical and they wear. They are also the cheapest thing in the kitchen to replace, and doing so does not disturb the finish.
How it compares to the alternatives
Against the two other things you might do to the same kitchen, the ranking is not what most people expect.
Against painting your existing doors, refaced doors last longer for a simple reason — they are new. A painted door is an old door with a new finish on it, and however good that finish is, the substrate underneath is as old as the kitchen. Where the doors are well made and sound, that is perfectly fine and painting is the better value. Where they are not, no finish rescues them.
Against full replacement, the visible surfaces are comparable, because on the surfaces you touch they are the same age. What differs is the boxes: yours are twenty or thirty years old and replacement's are new. If yours were sound at the start, that difference is theoretical rather than practical — a sound box does not have a shelf life in the way a finish does.
The honest summary is that refacing sits closer to replacement than to painting on durability, and closer to painting than to replacement on price. That is the whole argument for it.
What we warrant, and what we do not
Five years on our own work — the finish and the workmanship both.
Fifteen years on waterproof MDF doors and drawer fronts, which is the longest term we give anything and reflects what the material actually does.
Countertops are the exception worth stating plainly, because it catches people out: stone carries a one-year warranty from the fabricator who cuts it, not ours. One contract is not one warranty, and every term goes in writing with the quote rather than being discovered later.
What is being replaced in the first place
Durability is easier to reason about once it is clear what is new and what is not. New doors, new drawer fronts, new hinges, and the existing boxes cleaned back and sprayed rather than wrapped. Reading which parts of the kitchen are new and which are kept sets out exactly where that line falls, which is what makes the lifespan question answerable rather than a guess.
Material is most of the answer
How long a refaced kitchen lasts depends more on what the doors are made of than on anything else, and the honest ranking is not the obvious one. Knowing which door materials hold up and which do not is what turns this into a decision you make rather than one made for you by whatever the showroom had in stock.
Questions
Common questions
- How long does cabinet refacing last?
- The doors and the finish should be good for fifteen to twenty years in a normal household, which is roughly what you would expect from new cabinetry — because on the surfaces you touch, that is what it is.
- Does the sprayed finish chip or peel?
- 2K polyurethane is catalysed, which means it cures by chemical reaction into a hard film rather than drying soft. It resists kitchen cleaners, cooking grease and daily knocks far better than the water-based enamels most cabinet painters use, and it does not yellow with age.
- What actually wears out first?
- Hardware, usually — hinges and runners on the doors and drawers you open most. They are replaceable without touching anything else, which is the advantage of the fronts and the hardware being separate lines in the first place.
- What warranty comes with it?
- Five years on our own work, covering the finish and the workmanship, and fifteen years on waterproof MDF doors and drawer fronts. Every term goes in writing with the quote rather than being asked for on trust.
Want to know what your kitchen would take?
Send wide photographs of each run of cabinet. The written quote comes back inside 24 hours with the warranty terms on it.
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